These are the rants of an anonymous Left-leaning Libertarian. Libertarian views are generally socially liberal but fiscally conservative. I view George Bush as the anti-Libertarian, he is socially conservative and fiscally irresponsible. Unless you are a very wealthy person, religious fundamentalist, or a racist redneck, I cannot understand why a person would support George Bush.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Dick Cheney has NEGATIVE credibility on Iraq

Dick Cheney doesn't have zero credibility on Iraq, he has negative credibility. No one should listen to anything he says . . . and if you do, you should probably do the opposite of what he says.

First of all, he has been wrong on everything. He said he believed that Saddam has "reconstituted nuclear weapons" WTF? Saddam had no nukes and he knew it. Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he meant "reconstituted nuclear weapons program", he was still completely wrong. There was no nuclear program in Iraq. The yellowcake ruse was exposed as a fraud. And the aluminum tubes were for missiles as they were told by experts.

Cheney said that the insurgency was "in its last throes". He said that about 2 years ago! He has been completely wrong about that.

And beyond the fact that he has been so wrong is his conflicts of interest. There are people who are paying a great sacrifice for this war. Years away from jobs and their families. Over 3000 have paid the ultimate price. But Cheney never served . . . he got five deferments. No one in his family is serving. His daughter could have served. Well if he is not personally giving to the war effort, is he paying a monetary sum? During most wars, taxes are raise to pay for the war. Nope . . . Cheney has given himself huge tax cuts. Not only is he not paying more, he is actually paying LESS.

But it doesn't stop there . . . no, Dick Cheney is profiting from this war. Well all know how the contractor Halliburton that was once headed by Cheney received the largest government contracts for this war. Many of those contracts were secretly awarded with no bidding. Is that not fraudulent enough? Do you actually believe the rationalizations about how they had to be offered quickly and in secret? Well, add in the fact that these contracts had multi-year terms! There was no reason for such contracts to be given such long terms. They should have been allowed to be re-bid after the urgency was over and things were no longer secret.

Cheney is getting deferred compensation. That not enough of profiting? OK, he owns options that have massively gained in value. He has said that the will give those options to charity . . . well, why didn't he do that right away? BECAUSE HE WANTED THEM TO GO UP IN VALUE BEFORE HE DONATED THEM SO HE'LL GET HUGE TAX BREAKS. He'll be able to use those tax breaks to offset the huge speaking fees and other gratuitous gifts that he'll receive after he leaves office.

So not only has Dick Cheney been wrong on everything he has said about this war, he actually profits from this war. His credibility is less than zero. Doing the opposite of whatever he says is probably the best choice of action.